Taking his drink and Mama’s beer, he headed to the corner, where Mad Earl and Thelma and Ted and Clyde and the rest of the Harlan clan had staked out a collection of chairs clustered around an overturned barrel.

Thelma smiled up at Mama, pulled a white chair in beside her. Mama sat down and the two women immediately bent their heads together and started talking. In the past few years, they had become good friends. Thelma, Leni had learned over the years, was like most of the Alaskan women who dared to live in the bush—tough and steady and honest to a fault. But you didn’t want to mess with her.

“Hey, Leni,” Moppet said, smiling up with her mouthful of which-a-ways teeth. Her sweatshirt was too big and her pants were too short, exposing at least three inches of pipe-cleaner-thin shins above her slumped woolen socks and ankle boots.

Leni smiled down at the eight-year-old. “Hey, Mop.”

“Axle was home yesterday. I almost shot him with my arrow,” she said with a grin. “Boy, was he piss-a-rood.”

Leni bit back a smile.

“You got new pictures to show me?”

“Sure. I’ll bring ’em next time we come up.” Leni leaned back against the burnt log wall. Moppet tucked in close beside her.

At the front of the bar, a bell clanged.

The conversations around the bar quieted but didn’t silence. Town meetings might be an accepted custom off the grid, but you could never really shut up a room full of Alaskans.

Tom Walker moved into place behind the bar, smiled. “Hey, neighbors. Thank you for coming. I see a lot of old friends in this room and plenty of new faces. To our new neighbors, hello and welcome. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Tom Walker. My father, Eckhart Walker, came to Alaska before most of you were born. He panned for gold but found his real wealth in land, here in Kaneq. He and my mom homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres and staked their claim.”

“Here we go,” Dad said sourly, downing his drink. “Now we’re gonna hear all about his buddy the governor, and how they went crab fishing when they were kids. Good God…”

“Three generations of my family have lived on the same land. This place is not just where we live, it’s who we are. But times are changing. You know what I’m talking about. New faces attest to the changes. Alaska is the last frontier. People are hungry to see our state before it changes even more.”

“So what?” someone yelled.